A medical simulator, such as a manikin is commonly equipped with oral and nasal airways that are communicating with a simulated lung. The lung is fluidly coupled to the airways through a tube extending from the head portion, through a neck portion, and into a chest portion wherein the lung is arranged. In most manikins, there are two lungs that are each coupled via a simulated bronchus to a common simulated trachea. The bronchi and the trachea are constituted by tubes.
Such manikins are frequently used by medical staff or the populace to train CPR or more advanced medical procedures, depending on the design of the manikin.
The device is primarily intended for insertion through an opening made at the throat of the manikin. The opening connects with the tube forming the trachea of the manikin. This provides valuable training for tracheotomy, where an incision has to be made at the throat of the patient to make a slit through the skin and the trachea of the patient. When the slit has been made, a tracheostomy tube is inserted through the slit and into the trachea. In a manikin, the slit is conveniently already present, but has to be opened by insertion of a tracheostomy tube.
To avoid pollution of the tubes and lungs, and hence the necessity of cleaning and disinfection, during the performance of CPR, means, such as a ventilator cloth, are commonly used. This will largely prevent saliva and germs to enter the airways.
However, such a cloth or other means that are designed to prevent droplets from entering the airways are not possible to use when training on tracheal suctioning where a catheter or thin tube is inserted through the tracheostomy tube to suck out any mucus in the airways.
Consequently, such suction training is often done as “dry training”, without any fluids being present. This dry suction may not provide adequate training as the health worker will not know is if sufficient or any mucus would have been sucked out by the procedure. It is therefore desirable to have a simulated mucus present in the airways. The simulated mucus will add realism to the training and the health worker will instantly know from the flow of simulated mucus through the suction device that the suction is being performed correctly.
Removal of mucus from the airways prior to ventilation is important, as the mucus may prevent air from entering the lungs and the mucus may be forced into the lungs by the air ventilation pressure. Mucus in the lungs may cause harm to the patient and prevent air from properly entering the lungs.
CN205091958 describes a simulator for simulating removal of retentate liquid above an airbag by the impact airflow caused by simple respirator-assisted ventilation, when a tracheal tube with an airbag has been inserted into the trachea. Retenate liquid is retained by a filter and collected in a collection container.
This device is for simulating a different procedure than the procedure that the present invention is intended to simulate. This known device cannot be used for simulating tracheal suction.
Consequently, there is a need for a device that will enable simulated tracheal suctioning without the risk of any simulated mucus entering the airways and the lungs of the medical simulator.